Acting Out in Public

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If you're headed to Market Street this Friday and
Saturday, please watch out for the backwards-walking man with the silver spoon. If you're
not careful, you might run into him or he might run into you. But even if a
body collision occurs, don't expect him to break out of character.

Through this weekend's Art in Odd Places (AiOP) Indianapolis,
Rory Golden will walk backward with the help of a rear-view spoon. As Duty Free Ranger, from dusk till down,
he'll move around the event's downtown, open-air setting. In his piece, Golden explores
culture,
class and privilege, fantasy and freedom through the transmogrification of his
character into other characters such as a baton twirler. "People who see me
twirling think that I am really good, but if you are a professional baton
twirler, you know that I am not that good!" Golden says, promising passersby a
fun awakening from their daily routine. And it's a piece that is typical of AiOP's
public-space art antics.

Courtesy of Rory Golden

Rory Golden's Duty Free Ranger character combines the fanciness of a historical dandy with the responsibilities of a park ranger, including citation issuing.

AiOP comes to the Circle City thanks to the efforts of the
Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Arts Council of Indianapolis, Big Car and other
organizations that believe that it is time to take the art party outside. For
years, Indy's art scene has been thriving on certain avenues behind the gallery
and studio doors in our cultural districts, but with the advent of the Indianapolis
Cultural Trail: A Legacy of Gene and Marilyn Glick, the city has shown an
increasing interest for public and accessible art.

At AiOP, people are invited to join in the creative
process with the help of several professional artists who will bring works from
their studios to the streets from dawn to dust both days. Their open concept outdoor "galleries" will be up and down
Market Street, from City Market to Monument Circle. A variety of performances and interactive sculptures
promise
engagement for people of all
ages. Not to be missed will be locally beloved Know No Stranger's Pigeon Business in which three costumed
dapper pigeon-men hybrids will toss bread crumbs at people for a change. But
Indianapolis will also welcome visiting artists such as Indian-born artist
Jagrut Raval, who will creatively mount his work Swarming Time on various building along Market Street. They will be
studded with hundreds of ticking clock mechanisms to remind us of the fragility
of the present.

click to enlarge

Sheprice Townsend

Chicago native DeMarcus Purham' will draw on the plexiglass box that encases him for his Artist in a Box performance piece.

The urban environment lends artists a playful opportunity
for using people's surroundings in ways that feel new and surprising, especially
for those who walk this same route daily. Design artist DeMarcus Purham will
highligh this aspect in his piece Artist
in a Box. The Chicago native has been training for his performance where he
will reside inside a plexiglass box for 24 hours, drawing the city landscape of
Indianapolis, "I want to change the pace of what architectural or
cityscape art means or is perceived in society," he says.

AiOP invites artists to
approach art-making in an interactive way, using public spaces, under the theme
FREE. "I believe art-making starts with a question, and it's a
very interesting idea," Raval says, asking, "What is free? What is free will?
Being a part of a community, can we really consider ourselves free?"

Artist Brian Muzik considered the
theme for a long time and came up with his art piece Take-A-Penny/Leave-A-Penny, a large penny tray that will be filled
with the actual coins. Participants are also invited to choose how they want to interact with the sculpture.
Muzik thinks this interaction will be key for the interpretation of his work,
as his choice in subject matter is meant to symbolize one of the few ways left
where people give without expecting something in return. "Little things like
this in public that remind us of the kind of people that we want to be; it
reminds us that generosity is important," he says.

click to enlarge

Courtesy of Know No Stranger

Know No Stranger's Pigeon Business offers AiOP visitors the chance to get nose-to-beak with "winged rats."

Herron Sculpture professor
Lesley Baker's art piece Growth will
also challenge ideas of generosity and the choices we make in how we interact
with art. Her piece consists of materials that have been recycled to look like
flowers and butterflies. With a magnet on the back, the audience is invited to
play with the placement of the urban flora and fauna -- even if it means they
will go home with the people who move them around.

Such generosity is something that has been thriving in the
art scene of Indianapolis, however bringing it outside and celebrating it will
help bring awareness to others who aren't aware of the steady transformation
the city has been going through. "Indy is such a vibrant place, but it still
has a lot of people who feel like nothing is going on," says Michael Runge, a
found member of Know No Stranger. "AiOP is helping to bring a lot of what makes
the city exciting right to the people right on the street."

Runge believes that events such as AiOP can create an
audience for more events where Indianapolis becomes the artists' stage, "It
will be a great way for people to get a taste and get a craving for more," he
says. "I'm also hoping that it shows people a little of what is possible here."

The idea of showcasing art in a variety of ways is
something that local artists Luke Crawley and Quincy Owens considered while
making their submission for AiOP, which consists of cardboard sculptures that
will be strategically placed to emit electronic tones based on their locations.
"A
key component to growing the arts in a city is to support them in a variety of
ways," Owens says. "Friday especially should be very interesting with all of
the business people downtown, all doing their typical routine ... then it will
slowly transition to Friday evening and the weekend crowd and then even more so
on Saturday when the expected crowd of viewers is likely to be there."
Likewise, Crawley believes that public art is essential to the growth of city
culture, "It starts a conversation about public art with new people who haven't
thought about it before, and it keeps the public art landscape growing ...
which will provide more opportunities in the future."

Melissa Steckbauer

Melissa Steckbauer's Free Now offers passersby the chance to interact as they touch, see and react to ribbons hanging over the sidewalk.

Artist Melissa Steckbauer's Free Now will engage the audience
through touch. People will be encouraged to walk through hundreds of hanging
ribbons that are meant to transform the urban environment in more ways than the
obvious ones. This is not just bringing art to the streets, as the art ties the
audience into the city in a way that is simply not possible in a gallery.

Contact improvisation dancer, Stephanie Nugent will also
incorporate public "audience" participation in unusual ways, as her artwork
relies on the interaction between environment and artist.

"The fact that the audience is all around us
means that we are really responding to the audience energetically, we are
responding to what we see in the environment; people passing by, people
watching, the weather," Nugent explains. "It is not meant to be seen in a
theater; it is something that is meant to be shared and experienced."

This Friday and Saturday from 7 a.m to 7 p.m. both days,
there will be more than 20 performances happening simultaneously. The Art in
Odd Places festival is free, and regardless of previous commitments, you are
guaranteed a front seat to the best of local and visiting artist performances. Along
with entertaining performances, AiOP brings Indianapolis the challenge to
re-discover the way we freely experience our city -- through a rearview spoon,
through the eyes of a city landscape lover, through the sounds of ticking
clocks, and by giving or taking a penny. No doubt the hashtag #AiOP is going to
blow up all over Instagram
this weekend.

Indiana Department of Transportation could take lessons from Dutch artist Herman Kuijer, who executed his bright idea of underpass art installations in the Netherlands.

About The Author

Bio:Jennifer Delgadillo is an artist who lives on the Near Eastside of Indianapolis where she enjoys making art, writing, reading magazines, and drinking wine with her husband and her neighbors. Her work is eclectic and ranges from doing diabetes research to cooking brunch on Sundays at Tlaolli. She writes regularly...Jennifer Delgadillo is an artist who lives on the Near Eastside of Indianapolis where she enjoys making art, writing, reading magazines, and drinking wine with her husband and her neighbors. Her work is eclectic and ranges from doing diabetes research to cooking brunch on Sundays at Tlaolli. She writes regularly for Humanizemag.com.more